Our Stage and Its Critics eBook

We might fill page after page with quotations from
eminent thinkers going to prove the correctness of
the old Yogi teachings that Life is Omnipresent.
Modern Science is rapidly advancing to this position,
leaving behind her the old idea of “dead matter.”
Even the new theories of the electron—­the
little particles of electrical energy which are now
believed to constitute the base of the atom—­does
not change this idea, for the electrons manifest attraction,
and response thereto, and form themselves into groups
composing the atom. And even if we pass beyond
matter into the mystical Ether which Science assumes
to be the material base of things, we must believe
that there is life there too, and that as Prof.
Dolbear says: “The Ether has besides the
function of energy and motion, other inherent properties,
out of which could emerge, under proper circumstances,
other phenomena, such as life, mind, or whatever may
be in the substratum,” and, that as Prof.
Cope has hinted, that the basis of Life lies back
of the atoms and may be found in the Universal Ether.

Some scientists go even further, and assert that not
only is Life present in everything, but that Mind
is present where Life is. Verily, the dreams
of the Yogi fathers are coming true, and from the ranks
of the materialists are coming the material proofs
of the spiritual teachings. Listen to these words
from Dr. Saleeby, in his recent valuable scientific
work, “Evolution, the Master Key.”
He says:

“Life is potential in matter; life-energy is
not a thing unique and created at a particular time
in the past. If evolution be true, living matter
has been evolved by natural processes from matter which
is, apparently, not alive. But if life is potential
in matter, it is a thousand times more evident that
Mind is potential in Life. The evolutionist is
impelled to believe that Mind is potential in matter.
(I adopt that form of words for the moment, but not
without future criticism.) The microscopic cell, a
minute speck of matter that is to become man, has
in it the promise and the germ of mind. May we
not then draw the inference that the elements of mind
are present in those chemical elements—­carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, sodium,
potassium, chlorine—­that are found in the
cell. Not only must we do so, but we must go
further, since we know that each of these elements,
and every other, is built up out of one invariable
unit, the electron, and we must therefore assert that
Mind is potential in the unit of Matter—­the
electron itself... It is to assert the sublime
truth first perceived by Spinoza, that Mind and Matter
are the warp and woof of what Goethe called ‘the
living garment of God.’ Both are complementary
expressions of the Unknowable Reality which underlies
both.”